they thought the word of God dot worthy enduring the troules that it brought but the thorny ground the Covetous groud that came under Persecution Now how can it be a sign of Covetousness if they endure Persecution This is the Objection Answ First the meaning is not that they will endure any kind of Persecution but such Persecution as is against the plain and cleer points of Religion For that which the High-way ground regards not the Principles of Godliness that the other grounds suffered for and stood to But those were the Principles of Religion converting points for the Text in Matth. 13. speaks of converting points of Religion Such points which distinguish regeneracy and unregeneracy One sort of people minded not these things The other rather suffered for them than that they would part with them Rather than Demas would say the Gospel was a lie and that Jesus Christ was not God he would die presently That was so rooted in his Conscience that he would have thought himself unhappy to have given any check to it They did not come down right upon him but by cunning waies the Devil â—â—kes men by crast and not by fair strength However Demas did not love his life in this Case yet he loved his riches better than his life He cries better live not and be not than be in want When he was with Paul there was no great hazard run for it is said that Onesiphorus enquired him out and was not ashamed to walk with Paul when he had chains about him Now if men might go to men in Prison and walk up down with them in the streets there was not much hazard and danger That Demas could bear But when he must part with all the Text saith He cleaves to this present world That is such a kind of cleaving as is in the heart of God unto Christ and his people for by that word the heart of God is set out in the Scripture It signifies content and rest and ful delight and satisfaction in a thing Demas his heart was thus swallowed up in the things of this life And therefore though he could have lost his life at the first rather than to have denied the Principles of Religion yet he would rather have lost his life than endured want If when God cals for all you would spare some you are Covetous And say not that great degrees of Grace is required unto this for when the wil of God is shewed and determinately known a Saint sits down under it and quels al motions against it When a Godly man sees God wil have al he saith Thy wil be done Especially is a Godly man ready in the things of this life because at Conversion there is a mean esteem in him of the things of this life he looks not for things that are temporal but for what is eternal It is in the nature of a Beast to look after grass and the fields to live in the Air So for a Christian to have a mean esteem of this world either for his end or means He slights it for means and despiseth it 〈◊〉 his ends Look what you are when God takes away the things of this world Are your hearts in a quietness and composedness Again A man is then Covetous when he takes al opportunities of getting Again When a man is having and craving in his spirit when his praiers savors of the world like a vapor out of a Dungeon when his affections are strong in the matters of this life A mans Covetousness is not cured when his desires are hot Object Is it not lawfull for a man to desire more than he hath or so much as may Act all his parts and abilities in him Whether a mans observing what abilities he hath for publique service may not desire such a portion of this life as may Act him therein Answ Oftentimes it is not so much the love of a mans work as the love of a mans waies A man thinks he desires to love God when he loves the world The world is not worth the having You are in the world for Heaven When your thoughts are bowed down be afraid of that Trade not with those thoughts Remember Christs words Take heed and beware of Covetousness Arise ye dead and come to Judgment There is a Snare in your Calling you may be Covetous in desiring nothing but your due As this young man in my Text. FINIS Scriptures Opened in the Book of John 1.12 And Luke 12.15 Chap. Vers Page Genesis 4 14 229 42 1,2 48 Joshua 3 21 109 7 21 98 Judges 17 13 236 1 Samuel 15 23 263 1 Kings 1 17 152 2 Chronicles 30 8 125 Bzra 7 23 236 Job 27 5 46 34 36 164 Psalms 1 2 156 4 7,8 244 8 2 171 9 10 37,41 10 3 236 15 1 140 16 4 222  7 48,53   71 19 1 110 36 18 33 37 1 75,215  4 257  25 246 44 3 140 49 7 255 51 3 52 50 6,7 162 73 15 147  24 152 84 11 14 109 4 89 110 3 148 119 55 52 127 2 247 145 19 91 Proverbs 3 5 117   132 13 12 165 14 15 41 21 15 151 28 20,21 260 30 2 277 Ecclesiastes 12 1 52 Solomons Song 1 3 157 Isaiah 8 21 215 50 10 75   118 53 1 44  11 37   108 55 1 5  3 45,50 57 17 214   229   237 Jeremiah 32 40 167 Ezekiel 33 31 276 36 31 22 Hosea 6 6 250 Amos 8 5 276 Matthew 4 9 244 5 42 103 6 30 127  32 232  33 101   242 2 26 127 9 29 19,93 10 8 33  14 144  41 144 11 27 188 12 20 121 13 4 52  7 234  11 68  20 150   207  22 229   236   238  44 to 46    149   163  58 93 14 31 93   116 15 19 224  23 to 28    24 16 16 55  17 201 19 12 35 21 22 25  30,31 83 22 4 82  8 49  22 205  29 206  32 198 23 25 17 27 43 131 Mark 4 10 273 7 22 228 14 15 208 16 16 20,93   205 Luke 2 21 245 3 14 228 8 14 229 12 13 211  14 212  20 213  21 212  29 238  48 26 14 18 176 16 22,28    182 17 5 7,110   133 18 27 239 19 5,6 145 20 9 to 17    144   176 21 34 234   239   251 John 1 11 6,82   111   131  14 174  16 5,14   20,26 2 25 193 3 12 66  19 170  21 76   109  33 44 5 19 198  40 111  44 132 6 26 236  27 247  37 122   183 Â
6. In that its joy is full when it comes to know that it hath by Faith received Jesus Christ FOr the further discovery therefore of this joy and Faith wherein this willingness to beleeve and love of Christ appears I shall name these six particulars First Wherever there is true Faith in any measure the Soul doth love to hear the Doctrine of faith of Jesus Christ Of al truths that is most pleasing And most pleasing not only because it 's most profitable but because it 's most self-denying If so be the Soul would make its choice or call for any thing out of the Book of God before another it should be for somthing that laies open Christ and presseth beleeving on him How beautifull are the Feet of them that bring glad tidings Rom. 10.15 How beautifull that is they are as lovely as can be Nay so lovely as no words are able to express How beautifull The Apostle Paul did desire to know nothing among the Corinthians but Jesus Christ and him crucified 1 Cor. 2.2 that is he desired to make nothing else known And look what it was in him preaching so in every Beleever In Phil. 3.10 That I may know him and the power of his Death and the vertue of his Resurrection These things a man loves and he loves to hear spoken of and discoursed of Evil men therefore do love corrupt words and unsavory language Beleevers they love to hear of Jesus Christ His name is sweet and precious Not only to hear of him as a story but as a person whereof there is need and of whom there is use and absolute necessity unto salvation First I say the heart loves to hear of Jesus Christ Acts 13.42 When the Apostle had preached in the name of Christ all that were good came to him and prayed him to preach that over the next Sabbath day or as it is in some translations between this and the next Sabbath day as the word may well be rendred And he did as you may read there As in John 6. they cryed out ever more give us this bread so the poor Soul desires to hear of that again and again When Lidia heard Paul preach Jesus Christ she attended as one that would not lose a fillable nor a word of what was spoken concerning jesus Christ Acts 16.14 How heautifull as I said before are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of peace It is good to love the Law of God which teacheth a man his duty like one that is carefull to do his masters will Psal 1.2 He meditates therein day and night But it 's a better sign for a man to love the Gospel of Jesus Christ the glad tidings of him As I shal shew you if I come to it that there is not only as great honor given unto God thereby but thereby a man if more humbled and abased in himself and made nothing than by all that obedience which the Law requires or by all that sense of misery that the Law works in us because we have not done our duty A man hath meaner thoughts of himself when he thinks he must beleeve or he cannot be saved than he hath when he thinks if he be called to an account he must needs perish because he hath transgressed Gods Law The soul loves that law which shews its own face in a glass with al its spots upon it But it loves that glass better in which it beholds the face of God For thereby it is transformed from Glory to Glory 2 Cor. 3. last Out of a spirit of indignation and wrath against a mans selfe and sin a man is glad to heare any thing that can be against himself and his sin But out of a love of Christ and out of the love of greater excellencies in Christ then is in a mans self a man is glad to heare rather of Christ then of himself his name is as ointment powred forth Cant. 1.3 There is nothing in the scripture but what is sweet and as hony But the Gospel is as the hony-comb The whole scripture is as a sugared cup But the Gospel of Jesus Christ is as the bottom of that cup. Secondly Where ever there is true faith there is a desire and longing after Faith and Jesus Christ As new borne babes as the Text saith in 1. Pet. 2.3 A desire formally O Lord said the Disciples unto Jesus Christ increase our faith O Lord that we may receive our sight For its faith alone that makes us see the things freely given us of God and to know the treasury of grace and mercy which doth and hath lain hid from eternity And so there is also a vertual desire after Christ in al beleevers They long after the meanes whereby faith is wrought If you have rasted how good the Lord is As new borne babes you wil desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby Though that a Child cannot distinguish rationally between the Milk of the breast and that which is sugared It cannot tel that this is the one and this is the other But it hath a tast by which it can and nothing pleaseth but the mothers breast The Child cannot ask for it nor describe it but you may know it loves it because it is stilled with it and quieted with it So may be the case of many a Christian He may not be able by reason or by discourse or argument to make out the desirableness of Jesus Christ above al other things the excellencies of Jesus Christ above al other waies There may be Rhetorick put upon al other things beyond al that which he can see through or put upon the things of Jesus Christ But you wil find his heart quieted with nothing but Jesus Christ Let him pray with never so much in largedness and affections let him hear with never so much understanding and live with never so much unblameableness in the world yet al this is nothing his heart is unquiet because it is not according to what the law requires And if he sees no fault in it yet there is fault which the pure eyes of God behold when he comes to look it through and through And he hath no peace but when he comes to beleeve in Jesus Christ and receive peace from him What is there in al the meanes of salvation which thou longest after What is it which thou wouldest carry home with thee Is it somthing that may draw Jesus Christ nearer to thee and make him more lovely to thee So much thou mayest conceive of hope of thy state of Salvation The Love of Jesus Chrst is described by this that nothing gives the heart so much quiet and in nothing is the heart so much taken up and contented as it is with this that Jesus Christ is the Mediator and undertaker and is the surety and doth al with the father And that It doth do al with the father by him The heart being pleased and contented argues